BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of stent-graft design and operator skills on outcomes after endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. STUDY DESIGN: One hundred sixty-four patients (mean age 71 years) underwent stent-graft repair. Patients were treated with four different types of stent-graft: first-generation (n = 58) and second-generation (n = 17) Ivancev-Malm

Background: Sleep disturbance is common in intensive care patients. Aside from its unpleasantness, there is a correlation with intensive care unit (ICU) syndrome/delirium. Reasons for sleep deprivation appear to be multifactorial, including the underlying illness, an acute superimposed disturbance, medications, and the ICU environment itself. There are reasons to believe that alterations of the 'b

Previous studies suggest that obesity is related to increased risk of renal cell carcinoma (RCC); however, only a few studies report on measures of central vs. peripheral adiposity. We examined the association between anthropometric measures, including waist and hip circumference and RCC risk among 348,550 men and women free of cancer at baseline from 8 countries of the European Prospective Invest

Cutting tool premature failure, caused by tool fracture and chipping, is a frequent problem in the metal cutting area. For a certain type of cutting tool, correctly identifying its load profile and property profile is very crucial for prediction of the tool premature failure. The most direct way to evaluate the load profile and property profile of a cutting tool is to identify the stress working o

We show that collisions with stellar-mass black holes can partially explain the absence of bright giant stars in the Galactic Centre, first noted by Genzel et al. We show that the missing objects are low-mass giants and asymptotic giant branch stars in the range 1-3 M-circle dot. Using detailed stellar evolution calculations, we find that to prevent these objects from evolving to become visible in

We present a new density functional theory of ideal polymer fluids, assuming nearest-neighbor bonding constraints. The free energy functional is expressed in terms of end site densities of chain segments and thus has a simpler mathematical structure than previously used expressions using multipoint distributions. This work is based on a formalism proposed by Tripathi and Chapman [Phys. Rev. Lett.

The objective was to compare volume blood flow (VBF) in the descending aorta (DAo) of gestational age and weight-matched growth restricted (GR) and normal (N) fetuses. A longitudinal study of 20 N was compared with 11 GR in two analyses matched for weight and gestation. DAo dimensions and flow velocity were measured simultaneously using a new technique combining an ultrasonic phase-locked echo-tra

A dominant notion that homosexuality and heterosexuality give meaning to bisexuality already exists. But no one has explored the meaning that bisexuality might accrue with regard to monosexuality. Because bisexuals were never fully recognized within queer theory, the homosexual-heterosexual binary opposition continues to be the primary understanding of difference. Further, within queer theory, the

A myoelectric control system for prostheses was developed and evaluated on six healthy subjects. These were able to control a computer-animated hand in real-time with a 20 Hz update rate. A data glove, equipped with joint angle sensors, was used to train the system and to evaluate the continuous predictions of joint angles. A linear envelop filter was used for EMG signal pre-processing and the rec

PURPOSE: To assess the visual results, retinal detachment (RD) rate, incidence of glaucoma, and intraocular lens (IOL) placement after vitrectomy for removal of retained lens fragments in the vitreous after phacoemulsification. SETTING: Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Lund, Lund, Sweden. METHODS: This retrospective noncomparative interventional case series included all cases of

BACKGROUND: The objective of the present study was to optimize conditions for retroviral transduction of human cord blood (CB) CD34+ cells and to reveal mechanisms which interfere with efficient gene transfer. METHODS: An MSCV based retroviral vector with the gene for enhanced green fluorescent protein (MGIN) produced by GP+envAM12 (amphotropic envelope), PG13 (gibbon ape leukemia virus envelope)

Abstract in SpanishResumen: La tarea de la semiótica de la imagen no consiste solamente en determinar la especificidad de la imagen como signo, sino también en describir las particularidades de diferentes imágenes, como son, por ejemplo, el dibujo, la fotografía y la imagen de computadora. El presente texto describe, primero, el desarrollo del signo del tipo de laAbstract: The task of pictorial se

The elicitation of a positive patch test reaction in a given individual depends upon the dose of the sensitizer applied, the patch test technique and the occlusion time. The dose is determined by the concentration and volume/amount of test preparation applied. If the same amount/volume of a test preparation is applied all the time with the same test technique (same area of skin) and occlusion time

The importance of sexual selection in population divergence is of much interest, mainly because it is thought to cause reproductive isolation and hence could lead to speciation. Sexually selected traits have been hypothesized to diverge faster between populations than other traits, presumably because of differences in the strength, mechanism or dynamics of selection. We investigated this by quanti

An overview of the new field of Gas in Scattering Media Absorption Spectroscopy (GASMAS) is presented. GASMAS combines narrow-band diode-laser spectroscopy with diffuse media optical propagation. While solids and liquids have broad absorption features, free gas in pores and cavities in the material is characterized by sharp spectral signatures, typically 10,000 times sharper than those of the host

We present a capacitance-voltage study for arrays of vertical InAs nanowires. Metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors are obtained by insulating the nanowires with a conformal 10 nm HfO2 layer and using a top Cr/Au metallization as one of the capacitor's electrodes. The described fabrication and characterization technique enables a systematic investigation of the carrier density in the nanowire

We present a web-based method for mapping various relations between agents that have been involved in an emergency response operation. The method is based on combining a web-questionnaire with telephone interviews and it provides an efficient way of collecting large amount of information concerning the agents. By using the resulting network of agents it is possible to perform various network analy

We have examined the effects of three macrophagederived cytokines, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), transforming growth factor-01 (TGF-01) and interleukin-1 a (IL-la) on the contraction of collagen type I gels populated by human foreskin fibroblasts. Contraction was quantified as loss in gel weight. Both PDGF-AA and PDGF-BB were found to induce a rapid collagen-gel contraction. TGF-/J1 also

The ISOLDE RIB-facility at CERN has today been producing a vast range of radioactive beams since more than 30 years. The low-energy beams of ISOLDE will be complemented by a post-accelerator, REX-ISOLDE, currently being assembled. In order to convert the pseudo-DC, singly-charged beam from the ISOLDE mass separators into a cooled and bunched beam at higher charge states, a novel scheme of trapping